Signing on for the Gravity Games skateboarding sets is pro skater Bob Burquist (ironically he’s not the first pro skater to sign a promotional deal with The LEGO® Company, since Andy Mac is promoting the BIONICLE™ line). The first set covers street skating, with rails, a picnic table, and even a small shrubbery (those of us with warped minds find ourselves wondering if Bob wears “Ni” pads). The second set is for vert skating, with a half-pipe (including a drop-in platform) and a quarter-pipe on the side. An interesting addition to this set is the skating wand, which (in exchange for making the skater look like he’s been stretched on the rack) allows you to spin the skater around rapidly and completely trounce Tony Hawk’s signature 900.

Two more sets affiliated with the Gravity Games are focused on snowboarding. I don’t really follow the sport, but I believe Brian said that the pro snowboarder who signed on for these sets was Ross Powers, who has won gold for the US Winter Olympic Team. The first set is a downhill race featuring a pair of rails, a bunch of bumps, and two movable drop-in pockets. I flipped one up just to see how it worked, and the snowboarder slid rapidly down the entire ramp to the finish line. Brian told me that most people have them wipe out halfway down, so when I returned to this section to snaps some photos I tried it again and found out exactly what he was talking about.

The other set is a bit more confusing. I didn’t really take a good look at it, but I think it includes some sort of launcher device that will shoot the snowboarder at the double-sided ramp, causing him to perform a limited variety of airial tricks (hey, if you want the more complicated stuff, you’ll have to do it by hand).

The only NBA set that hasn’t already been released is the Ultimate NBA Arena, which features the same basic layout as the NBA Challenge, but with large scooped barriers to help keep the ball on the court, and flesh-colored NBA stars instead of the basic yellow LEGO® minifigs. The floor pits are the same pieces as the ones used for the Soccer sets, but instead of having spring-loaded pedestals, the players have new spring-loaded legs. Tipping a player forward will allow him to pick up a basketball that has landed in his pit, and pulling him back and releasing him will cause the basketball to fly forward. With practice, you might even be able to drop it through the hoop (I didn’t have that kind of time, so I had to settle for launching it wildly out of the court and onto the floor below).

Finally, in the sports category, is the NHL Hockey series. Unlike previous pictures, these (unfortunately) do not have any BOHROK teeth or eyes mounted to their toes. Smacking them on their heads (ouch!) will cause them to flick their hockey sticks. One of the most interesting new revelations is that they will be packaged in canisters similar to the various BIONICLE™ sets. While four of the cans shown have TOA NUVA tops, the leftmost one with the red top shows what the final can top design will look like. The Hockey can top has a pop-up nozzle in the center that allows the can to serve as a water bottle. Brian said that the intent is to make sure that all of the can-style packaging can serve a useful purpose after the set has been built. The other new bit of info is that the hockey players are related to the BIONICLE™ MATORANS, as evidenced by the light-grey MATORAN head hidden behind the facemask.